While Microsoft claims it was always part of the plan, the software giant is bidding farewell to Jerry Seinfeld after just two commercials. After all that hype? After spending a reported $10 million? After just a few weeks on air? Yea right, it was always part of the plan. The ads sucked and Jerry Seinfeld was a poor choice. Someone finally woke up and smelled the stench.

It seems the outcry against the ads and the overwhelming WTFness they generated has caused Microsoft to question the direction of the campaign and, perhaps, realize Seinfeld was not, in fact, the right choice for the company's Save Vista effort.

On Thursday, Microsoft will make the announcement official and introduce what they are calling phase two of the campaign.

Or so says Stephen Baldwin who, after speaking out against The CW's Gossip Girl at a recent Family Research Council Action Value Voter's Summit, has become the latest to "endorse" the show in its ongoing anti-ad campaign. And by endorse, we mean his quote has been photoshopped onto the existing campaign poster by Gawker's resident art dude and is in no way part of the actual campaign.

- The Institute for America's Future hopes to derail the political bullshit train with an ad campaign about "major challenges facing the country." That's cool and all, but is this nearly as exciting as this? Don't answer, that's rhetorical.

- "Mom, what are those?" "Tadpoles, honey." "Oh. What do they have to do with being 'knocked up'?" Good luck with that.

- If PETA's ads were always this cute, I might have wanted a pig for a pet, not for breakfast. I like the point it made though. And look! They didn't even have to embarrass anybody.

There are stranger ways to encourage people to vote but this one from Declare Yourself featuring an undressed, taped up Jessica Alba -- which is somehow supposed to suggest only you can silence yourself (i.e. not vote) -- is up there on the strange list.

So are we supposed to be encourage to...rip the tape off Jessica so we can ogle her naked body? That might actually distract one from the necessary concentration required to make in informed decision when in the ballot booth.

- Degourget doesn't likeEsquire's first-ever digital magazine cover, which was sponsored by the "ugly-assed Ford Flex." The price we pay for bells and whistles.

- Clear Channel Radio hosted an event called Stripped, where artists play "stripped-down" versions of songs in a jammy "unplugged" setting. Why is this news? Because Miley Cyrus performed Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, that's why. Everything involving Miley Cyrus is news, especially when the headline reads "MILEY CYRUS STRIPPED."

American Express has this program called Members Project, which funds worthy ventures with $2.5 million. (Members vote to decide who gets the money.) Read all about it.

To promote the program, AmEx used footage from previous ads to produce a montage of famous cardholders like John Cleese, Martin Scorsese, Robert DeNiro, Ellen Degeneres and Jim Henson.

Their achievements are presented as the fruit of childlike desires. Scorsese's "project," for example, was to "tell unforgettable stories"; Degeneres wanted to "encourage people to dance to their own tune." The premise is, these people changed the world with their passion. Got a dream? Maybe you can change it too.

In the first ad released by Crispin Porter+Bogusky for Microsoft, Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld meet serendipitously at Shoe Circus, a Payless ShoeSource-type store. Seinfeld helps him pick out shoes. Made of pleather. Significant glances are exchanged, immigrants gawk, and churros are shared.

Thus ingratiated with one of the world's richest (and thriftiest?) men, Seinfeld poses the question we'd all ask, given the chance (and a serious case of munchies): "Are they ever gonna come up with something that'll make our computers moist and chewy like cake so we can eat 'em while we're working?"